My B. popenoei decided to bloom! What a show! I measured the stalk from plant to tip....it's 40 inches! The flower head itself is 14 inches high and 12 inches wide. I had no idea they bloomed like this....even my husband (who couldn't care less about plants) was impressed. Wooo hoo!
Karen
Here's a close-up of the flowers. Too cool for words!
Looks very nice. Way to grow!
A very special bloom!! Time to pull up a chair and stare..
No kidding! I actually had to stand on the couch to take the close-up pic! This plant must really like the Seaweed fertilizer and Eleanor's VH-11, eh? That must be the trick. This plant is very rootbound as well, I've been waiting for the flowering to end so I can transplant it.
K
After that show you might want to leave it rootbound! Maybe someone else will know if this one loves being tight in a pot. Beautiful, beautiful bloom. My dh would be impressed with that one, too. :~)
Lana
I have one and its just in the pot I started this from a leave My X took it from the dr. office in 1998 I have made many cuttings and I have no idea what to do with it except let it grow Here is a picture of mine I just started some more cutting and just put some dirt on top
Karen, re B. popenoei
Your plant looks more like B. Kansas City or B. Ramona. .
hybrid of B. 'Ricinifolia' , --- , Dietrich , 1847
------------------------------ Rhizomatous , heracleifolia X peponifolia (is barkeri ) ,
Google popenoei.
Mike
Oh thanks! I've been wondering about that! It's weird though. This plant came from a leaf rooted from the plant shown below.....can't imagine that they could change so much from a rooted leaf. The leaves look very different though. The plant above with the flowers is in a bright window (south window covered with a thin white fabric shade, where the plant below is in a room with little bright light....mostly pale light with just 15 to 20 minutes of bright light as the sun passes a high window.
I root the leaf stems in water then plant them. So glad you mentioned this because I've been wondering if the leaves of B. popenoei vary from plant to plant as much as these 2 plants do!. Could what I though was B. popenoei (below) actually be something else all together???
Karen
Karen,
B. popenoei is a species and the leaf would produce a true plant.
The plant in your recent pic looks like B. barkeri and it was formerly called B.peponifolia and this plant is confused with B. popenoei. One of the parents of B. 'Ricinifolia' is bakeri and your plant looks like one of the hybrids from this cross, SO, your parent plant may be a hybrid and not a true barkeri. I hope some of this makes sense.
I have a plant very similar to yours that I have been growing since 1974.
Mike
Thanks Mike,
I need to look into this. Both my plants are larger than the descriptions for B. barkeri or x ricinifolia and the leaves are different. Curious.
Any other begonia mavens want to weigh in on the correct names of my begonias? Surely someone out there knows! Help!
......off to do some research!
K
